by Erika Masten
At Kendra’s ear, Rory whispered, “Say it, sugar. Say you want us to take you like only shifters take their mates. Like only shifters fuck their mates.”
“Mates,” she repeated as though hypnotized by Galloway’s voice and by the pleasure of the men pressing in on her. Every muscle in Martin’s body was rock hard and poised to pounce on this woman. He reminded her of that by grinding his hips in a circle against the juncture of her thighs. The ridge of his erection jutted forward to strain against the yielding fabric of her panties, parting the lips of her pussy, exposing her clit to coarse denim and the agonizing friction of his movements. “Mates.”
This second time she sighed was different, distressed. Then her pupils, dilated with arousal a moment before, retracted like recoiling blossoms into little black points—just as the cabin lights blinked on and wavered, emitting a grating electrical buzz. Martin knew full well there was no electricity running to the cottage; he’d checked earlier, before dark, and had to get out the battery-powered lanterns.
“The diner,” Rory said as he tried to gather Kendra into a protective embrace. She shuddered and then began to struggle weakly. “It’s happening again.”
“No… mates,” she rasped, barely coherent. “I won’t….”
No mates. Martin understood that feeling, that vow. Yet a deep part of the shifter felt challenged, as though someone was denying him possession of what was rightfully his. “I think you will,” he told Kendra in a teasing growl as he released her flushed breast to reach down to her pussy. Falk slid two fingers into her panties, through the light dusting of soft curls and deep into the wet heat of Kendra’s core. His own body responded to the luxurious sensuality of her flesh with a painful throbbing all through his heavy, engorged balls and rampant cock. The flickering bulb hanging under a shade in the center of the room, behind them, burst in a shower of sparks as a visible manifestation of the triad’s building lust. “Your little fireworks show isn’t going to distract us from how ready you are to be fucked.”
But the electrical discharge that threw the huge horse shifter backward against the opposite wall and propelled Martin back through the sunroom screen and out onto the hard ground was a different matter altogether. The intoxicating spell of intimacy and sexual energy broke, and Falk roared and rolled to his feet. He righted himself just in time to catch sight of the black-clad figures moving in on the cabin from the forest.
Agency, he thought.
I know, Rory responded mentally, making Martin pull up short and shake his head. The werewolf still wasn’t used to someone being able to talk to him at a distance and from inside his own mind. In the two weeks they’d known each other, this was only the third time Galloway had been able to make that clear a connection. Kendra’s panicked and on the run toward the lake. We have to—.
Martin stopped listening, his shift upon him. The transformation to half-form blurred human thought enough for him to shut out the irritating sensation of Rory inside his head. Falk—and his wolf—knew what to do. His body swelled in height and power, fur bristling to the surface of his skin, muscles extending and thickening. All the better to break bones and tear flesh, and no one more deserving than the humans who hunted them.
The half-form werewolf, a foot taller and seventy pounds heavier, slammed into the nearest human at about a 40 MPH run. Not enough of a start to get up to a wolf’s full 60 MPH, but it still split the chest piece of the soldier’s tactical armor down the middle. One, two, three ribs snapped under the werewolf’s massive weight as Martin came down on top of him in a mass of fur and muscle and wrath. The beast raised both his fists above his head before hammering them down on the stunned and groaning hunter. One more broken bone for all the battle scars on Martin’s body, burning under his fur. Two for all the wolfen and wolfkin females specifically targeted by the Agency to interrupt the bloodlines and deny unmated males their only salvation from the wilding. Three for daring to come so close to… to the female fey who was his, to Kendra.
Kendra. Where was she in the eruption of shouts and strangely muted gunfire? The werewolf looked up from the mangled mess beneath him to scan the darkness. It was the wrong moment for distraction. The weave of chain shot out of the shadowy trees like a predator itself pouncing on the shifter. The fine metal net closed around him in a cold, brutal embrace that tightened by the moment. Not a conventional weapon, he realized as his human thoughts cleared and focused even further. His shift began receding on its own, beyond his control, against his will.
The chain. It was part of the weapons cache. They had a fucking Fenris chain, one of the first ones used by the Aesir gods to try to bind the Fenris Wolf. While such a rigging hadn’t been enough to hold the wolf god himself, it was enough to render a mere werewolf totally helpless. Enough to bring Martin down in a panting, sweating human heap in the grass.
The intense physical weakness that followed an Odin Wolf’s return to human form brought Falk’s mental defenses down. Rory’s voice exploded inside Martin’s mind instantly, as soon as the wall fell, a barrage of curses and inner grunts and huffs of effort and pain. The sensations raced through the wolf and made him wince as though the blows to the horse shifter were injuries to his own body.
“Fuck,” Martin breathed. It was an agonizing effort just to take in air with the chain squeezing in on his chest, tighter and tighter. Worse was the sense that the stallion, his… his comrade in battle, his sword-brother, was fighting alone. Martin had never felt that sort of pack kindred to another species of shifter before.
And what of Kendra? Where was she while the werewolf twisted feebly against the hold of a ridiculously delicate but—to him—unbreakable chain?
A shadow, the form of something huge, passed between Falk and the moon. Blinking, forcing himself to focus through the threat of panic, Martin fixed on the massive chestnut stallion. The horse threw its enormous weight forward to raise its back legs in a fatal kick to one Agency hunter rushing the beast. Then, rearing back and snorting and frothing with fury, the horse used its gleaming front hooves to reduce another assailant to a bloody pile of broken limbs.
Even with at least three dead, the Agency strike team retreated too quickly, with too little fight. The stallion that was Galloway banked and reared and circled the large clearing of the camp. Only then did his huge shadowy form fold back into his human shape. Such a different shift, elegant and graceful compared to the wolf violently pushing its way to the surface. As such, horse shifters did not suffer the debilitating weakness once they had released their animal form for a human one again.
Huffing, still enraged, Rory stalked back to Martin’s prone body. With one hand, the stallion shifter snapped the links of the chain that was deadly to a wolf but nothing to him. The effortless strength made Falk wonder what a warhorse could do, without the spiritual nature inherent to the other equine shifter bloodlines—and without the distaste for violence but rather a celebration of it.
Galloway helped the severely weakened werewolf to his feet… and put Martin back on the ground with a solid punch to the jaw that was going to swell and ache for days. “They took her,” Rory bellowed. “She needed us to protect her, and you were too filled with your mindless fucking rage to even care!”
“How was I supposed to know—?”
“Kendra was what they wanted from the moment they got here. That’s why they left: they didn’t care about two shifters when they could grab a Tallan psychic in her condition.”
“Her condition? What the fuck?” Martin staggered to his feet, glaring warily at the panting, ranting werehorse. “And you know this because—?”
“I could hear them thinking it!” Rory dragged his hands through his now loose blond hair. “I was trying to tell you, but you shut me down, and then there was all this anger. All your anger!” Galloway stared down in horror at the bodies of what were apparently his first kills. Martin didn’t comment on what he felt emanating from the other man—not just anger or disgust at having killed, but distress at not regret
ting it as much as Rory wanted to.
Both shifters stood panting for long, tense minutes, before Rory finally said, accusingly, “We have to get her back. Whatever it takes, Martin.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Kendra roused herself just long enough to know she’d been sleeping and that it was no natural rest. She felt drugged, thick-headed as she blinked through swollen eyes, like she was having a mild allergic reaction to… to whatever they had hit her with in the tranquilizer dart at the campsite. That was the last thing she remembered before starting to come to with cottonmouth and a headache that liked to make her wish she was dead. It didn’t last, though, the agony of consciousness, of realizing she’d gone from bad to worse, from runaway to captive in a dim, grim, featureless concrete room. Alone. Mates, Kendra thought bitterly. Where were Rory and Martin? What good were her dream men to her now? Then the drugged sleep overcame her again.
Kendra had a sense it was a long time, at least a day, before she fought her way up from unconsciousness again. Same room, all hard gray concrete, recessed LED lighting along the seams of the walls, just a cot and a prison-style bare metal toilet for furnishings. The psychic lifted her head, only with great effort, to squint at the heavy metal door past her bare feet.
Lord, I was half naked when they took me, she realized in horror, her memories rushing back. With one hand, moving in dulled and clumsy reaction to her thoughts, Kendra felt her chest and found a simple, thin tank top, then shorts made of the same material.
“You’re awake, Miss Kenner,” a male voice called with practiced calm through a hidden speaker. “How are you feeling?”
Why did that voice sound familiar? And Kenner. He called her Kenner. They’d run her fingerprints and brought up a decoy identity, planted inside law enforcement and military systems courtesy of clan moles and allies. The good news there was that meant the clan cover was holding up, at least so far. The bad news was that by now the clan council would know she had run, and they’d have at least some idea of where to look for her. Wouldn’t they? She turned her head again, trying to figure out what kind of holding facility this was.
“Kendra,” the voice coaxed, obviously wanting her attention. “Kendra, do you understand me?”
She tried to answer only to find her mouth would move, but no words would come out, like they couldn’t fit through her swollen throat. The unseen male made a thoughtful sound, as though considering her condition, before going silent again. And he was silent for a very long time. It couldn’t have been as long as it felt for Kendra, because she would have said it was days. In her drugged state, she had no sense of time and slipped in and out of consciousness without a moment’s warning.
Later—no idea how much later—the metallic clang of the door unlocking and swinging open woke Kendra again, and she used every bit of strength in her to push herself up onto her elbows. To watch him stalk cautiously into the room. The black-haired figure moved not so much like he was being careful of her, the crazed psychic, as much as he was trying not to panic the prisoner. Good room for imprisoning a psychic, she realized. No exposed bulbs or wiring to short out if Kendra’s Tallan went haywire again. No, this man strode, more like a soldier but without the high and tight haircut he should have had. A contractor or consultant, maybe, or one of the specialists that shifters in the west apparently knew as the Agency but Nacey Clan just referred to as government men.
The stranger carried a plastic food tray, but Kendra wasn’t looking much to that as he approached her. She was staring at his eyes, his bright bluish gray eyes, with the very light suggestion of citrine gold along the outer edge of the irises. Kendra had seen those eyes before in her dreams. This was the third man her Tallan had been trying to tell her about, warn her about.
Setting the tray of mushy food down on the bare floor, the man bent near and said, “Kendra, I’m here to check on you, to make sure you’re alright. You didn’t react well to the sedatives we gave you to keep you calm and safe while we transported you.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have given them to me, and you damn sure shouldn’t have kidnapped me,” Kendra responded before she realized she could speak again. Her voice was weak and raspy, her throat sore, but still….
This brought a subtle smile of amusement to the man’s classically handsome face. Not a supernatural, she thought to herself. Not rugged enough for something like a werewolf or angelic enough—divine enough—for some of the other fey, like a stallion shifter. The thought of Martin Falk and Rory Galloway churned a pang of pain and yearning in the pit of Kendra’s stomach.
“Let me help you sit up, Miss Kenner, so I can take a look at you and we can talk.” With large, warm, deceptively gentle hands, the dark stranger hefted Kendra up and around to a sitting position with her back resting against the wall and her legs dangling over the side of the cot. Thick thighs, Kendra, she thought vaguely. You need some tone, girl. But really, she wasn’t the kind to care about a few extra inches, particularly when being held prisoner by an irritatingly handsome and insincere jailer.
“Who are you?” she mumbled as he pressed fingertips to one of her wrists and to the pulse point in her neck and checked his watch. Taking her vitals. He didn’t seem like a doctor, though, more like some sort of observer or examiner. Like a…. Kendra swallowed hard at the impression that flitted through her mind. He seemed more like a professional interrogator, what some might have called a torturer, something she knew about in part from her preparation as one of the Eyes of the clan and in part from her professional background in psychology.
When he didn’t respond, Kendra sighed with forlorn resignation. “I’ll just call you Bright Eyes then.” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it brought a low chuckle from the man. It also gave her a moment when his mental defenses, obviously well-trained, wavered enough to let her feel a little bit of his want. Everyone had them; all Kendra had to do was look. His was to use her, in a professional sense, but that was obvious even if his purpose remained vague to her. To study her, yes, that too. But there was something else.
Those deviously beautiful eyes were subtly scanning Kendra’s body, and not just at her pulse points. His gaze lingered along the curve of her bare shoulder and the swell of her breasts where the cotton tank pulled tight across the front. The expression along the smooth, taut planes of his face darkened as his attention focused on the roundness of her belly and thighs. His want was there; it was Kendra. The realization made her stiffen at first and fight her instinct to recoil from possible assault. She didn’t want him to wonder if she was somehow reading him, though. Kendra needed to delve deeper, and the longer he kept his defenses down, the better for her.
Her jailer desired her but with a want that was a mixture of both enjoying and rejecting what he considered the perversity of it. In his mind, wanting Kendra was obscene, both thrilling and shameful. For the average man or boy, that often summed up the first time he found himself really attracted to a big girl but too afraid of what people would think, but this didn’t seem like that. The strength of the conflicting wants felt far too pronounced. Was it about wanting a psychic, a supernatural? Lord, that made him a government man for sure.
Kendra took a breath to work up her nerve. “Are you going to kill me?”
Bright Eyes breathed out a deep if brief sigh of laughter. She couldn’t help watching his chest beneath the tight black polo he wore. He had the body of a professional soldier, with the obvious definition that said keeping fit was part of the job. Broad shoulders, torso narrowing just enough at the waist, muscular hips. It figured that she couldn’t get lucky enough to have been kidnapped by the garden variety gym rat thug. Kendra ignored the warmth spreading over her skin. Nothing she could have done to avoid it, after having erotic dreams about this man for weeks. Not her fault her defective Tallan had mixed up a warning with his love-hate attraction to a psychic.
Had it been the same with the shifters? The same message, a warning?
“I’m not going to kill you, Kendra,
” Bright Eyes said, cutting off her anxious train of thought. Her dark captor crouched to rest on his heels in front of her, with startling grace and balance. As though coming down to her level was going to reassure her. Psychology 101. Kendra had her credentials, working with abused children. He was going to have to try harder than that.
“In fact, I’d use any force necessary to stop anyone who tried to come in here and hurt you. I’m here to keep you alive.” He remained kneeling there in front of Kendra for a moment, studying her face expectantly, before he finally stood and resumed his place looming over her. After another few seconds of hesitation, he said, “Can you read me, Kendra? With whatever psychic ability your Tallan gives you? Can you tell if I’m lying or not? Because I’m telling you the truth. I’m not going to kill you or let anyone else here kill you.”
Kendra had no intention of revealing what her ability was. Bad enough he knew she was a psychic, from what she’d done at the diner, she guessed. Did he also know that the only reason she had discharged energy like that was because she was losing control, deteriorating, going mad? Did he know about the mating?
Instead of asking all these questions, Kendra blinked up nonplussed and quipped, “Guess that includes not dissecting me in the lab, too, right?”
Again, he gave her no more than a light chuckle and even sounded genuinely amused. Whatever he—they—had in mind for Kendra, it didn’t require her cooperation or approval, perhaps only that she be conveniently passive for now. “You rest, Miss Kenner,” Bright Eyes said before locking her away again alone behind the thick metal door.
When Kendra laid back down, though, a creeping fever of anxiety and fear crawled up over her like a breath-stealing phantasm in the night. It sat on her chest. She gripped the edges of the cot beneath her as she fretted over how much of her Tallan was still intact and how bad the deterioration had been when the dreams had started.